


Bake Sale: A Mixed Media Collage

by thuvia ptarth (thuviaptarth)



Category: Joan of Arcadia
Genre: F/F, Yuletide, recipient:Nina, yuletide2004
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-21
Updated: 2004-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thuviaptarth/pseuds/thuvia%20ptarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>40x30", mixed media (wood, paper, oil paint, pencil, metal, tinsel and paper muffin cups, hard candy, photographs, shellacked brownie crumbs and rice krispy treats, coffee beans, chiffon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bake Sale: A Mixed Media Collage

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by Katie M.

>   
> _Bake Sale: A Mixed Media Collage,_ 2003, 40x30", mixed media (wood, paper, oil paint, pencil, metal, tinsel and paper muffin cups, hard candy, photographs, shellacked brownie crumbs and rice krispy treats, coffee beans, chiffon).
> 
> Catalog entry, "Art in Arcadia: A High School Exhibition," Franklin Gallery
> 
> "... one of the more striking exceptions in a show sadly marked more by adolescent pretension than by youthful energy, sophomore Iris Cantor's 'Bake Sale: A Mixed Media Collage,' makes use of childhood desserts, coffee beans, ticket stubs, and art show flyers to show the artist's maturation from an idyllic childhood to a confident adolescence as represented by the progression from school bake sales to cafe art shows. The pictures of the smiling artist--an elementary school photograph, a much more recent pencil sketch--ground what might be too rarified a conceit in autobiography. The shreds of a blue chiffon scarf are the crowning touch, adding a playful hint of discreet sensuality."
> 
> Andy Rees, "Local Teens Show Off: Arts Show
> 
> at the Franklin Gallery," _Arcadia Herald,_ July 18, 2003

 

1.

> I never liked you anyway.
> 
> Just because I kissed you doesn't mean I like you.
> 
> You have no right to feel sorry for me. You don't know anything about my life just because you saw me crying once, you can't pin a label on me and expect that to explain every
> 
> I just kissed you because I wanted to freak you out, guess that worked out really
> 
> Dear Joan,
> 
>  
> 
> I'm sorry I freaked you out. I don't know why I
> 
> Dear Joan,
> 
>  
> 
> I'm sorry I freaked you out. I guess I misunderstood what you meant, or I guess really how you looked, and anyway it was stupid of me. I'm sorry. Can we just forget this and go back to not talking to each other?
> 
> Dear Joan,
> 
>  
> 
> I'm sorry for what I did. For both our sakes, it's probably a good idea if one of us quits the kids' art therapy group, and I figured that ~~since you were newer~~ since you didn't seem that excited about being there anyway, maybe it could be you. Not that I'm trying to force you out. I just think it would be a good idea.
> 
> Dear Joan,
> 
>  
> 
> I
> 
> Dear Joan,

Iris goes through half a spiral notebook before she gives up, and okay, it's half of what was left after she'd used it for biology notes, but that's still a lot of torn-up paper in her desk trash can. Or a lot of paper in and around her trash can, because her aim wasn't always that good. She kneels to pick up all the fragments, along with two paperclips and a really gross amount of hair caught in the carpet, even though she always brushes her hair in the bathroom and not her bedroom.

She carries the trash can to the bathroom and turns on the water faucet before she begins setting fire to each piece, one by one. The matches keep going out, or burning down to her fingertips before she realizes. She's going to have blisters, but if her mom notices, she can just say she was careless with the soldering iron while working on a project. It's happened before.

Lysol doesn't really kill the smell when she's done, so she lights a vanilla-scented candle and shuts the door. It'll probably be okay. Her mom mostly uses the bathroom off her bedroom anyway.

She feels a little guilty about wasting water and not recycling the paper.

2.

"She wants to do this bake sale. So the kids can, you know, raise money for art supplies. And it's ... they're really excited about it, they like it, it's making them feel like they're in control of something, and not just dependent on--not just dependent."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic about it."

"I hate bake sales."

"Do you want to tell me why?"

"It's just--it's stupid, I know what it's about, I should be over it. It's not a big deal. It's ... we had this bake sale in third grade. I mean, we had lots of bake sales, but this time my mom couldn't make anything because she'd broken her arm. I mean, he'd broken her arm. You know. But she'd promised, I'd promised I'd bring in stuff or something, I don't know why it seemed that important. It's not like anyone would care if we didn't have rice krispy treats or something. But. I didn't want to mess up, I guess. I didn't want anyone to ... to catch me messing something up. You know. So I tried to make them myself, and it was horrible. I had to throw out the muffins, but I thought the rice krispy treats might still be okay, so I took them in. And no one wanted any. They were burnt around the edges. That's supposed to be hard to do with rice krispy treats, I guess I'm special."

"And this was upsetting."

"Yeah. I just ... they were so awful. And that was, that was the time Mrs. Richmond asked me--she wasn't my teacher anymore, she was my teacher in second grade, but she was supervising the bake sale, and she took me aside and she ... I don't know what she noticed. But she asked me was there something wrong at home. Did I want to talk to her about it."

"... What did you say?"

"I said no. I said everything was fine."

"Are you angry at yourself for that?"

"I guess so. I could have ... things could have stopped then. There wasn't any reason not to tell her."

"But you know that children often don't. They think they're protecting their families. You wouldn't blame one of the kids you tutor for doing that."

"I wouldn't. I know. I just. I just feel like I should have known better....I guess I thought there wasn't any point, because Dad was being good then, you know, because he felt sorry about it. He didn't even complain about the burnt smell in the kitchen, and it was pretty bad. So, yeah, he was in one of his nice phases....They don't get that that's the worst part."

"Who doesn't?"

"You know. Normal people."

"Iris, it's okay to cry."

3.

You don't like Joan Girardi. You might like her mother, you're not sure. Mrs. Girardi knows stuff, and she's actually pretty good, and most of the time her advice makes sense. But she always wants people to say nice things, even if there's nothing nice to say, which you guess is where Joan gets it from. You should be more upset with Mrs. Girardi about this--it's a crime against art, you don't lie about art, you just don't--but you're not.

When she comments on your stuff, she will tell you when you've gotten something wrong. (Sometimes she'll tell you you've gotten something wrong when it's right, but you're used to being misunderstood.) So you guess it's okay, as long as she's honest with you. As long as you can learn. Most of the other kids in class may be playing, but you're not.

You don't like Joan Girardi, you don't like the way she whines and you don't like the way she's petty and you don't like the way she gets everything she wants without having to pay for it. You don't like her streaked hair and her long bright scarves and her pretty, pouty face, her pretty, pouty, normal face, the pretty, pouty, normal face of someone who should be in the in crowd.

You don't like Joan Girardi, so you can't explain why you're kissing that pretty pout. You can't explain it but you're doing it and then you're not, because she's not responding at all and when you draw back she looks dumbfounded, and then you know that all the things you thought were the worst decisions you ever made were just practice. This is the real thing.

4.

**Catherine Fischer, C.S.W.**

**From the session notes for Iris Cantor, 5/10**

**Confidential**

\- Defensive posture, feet on couch, hugging knees - plays with bracelets - avoids eye contact

 

\- bk sale, aftermath of father violence, f. in conciliatory mode

 

\- forced early adulthood - resents this? ashamed of failure?

 

\- "They don't understand." normal people

 

\- unhappy w/peer group, recent breakup, diff. cnncting

 

Poss. suggest group ther.?

5.

5/20

 

i haven't written anything since friday.

i stared at that sentence for a long time before writing this one. i still don't want to write about it, which of course means i should. i haven't painted anything either, and at first i pretended it was because i was too mad, but i always knew it was because i was lying to myself. you can't lie to yourself and make art. not good art, anyway. most people lie to themselves about everything, that's why their work sucks.

friday i kissed joan girardi.

it seems like i shouldn't need to write down the details, because it's not like i'm ever going to forget the humiliation, but when i go through old entries, i remember stuff i thought i'd never forget. i kind of want to forget this, but that means i should remember it.

we were the last two people in the yearbook office. i could tell she hated it. i hated it, too, but it was worth sticking around longer to make her uncomfortable. anyway, i had work to do on the photographs. she was trying to do layout with the poetry submissions, only she had no idea what she was doing. brian should never have let her back on staff. he's probably still hoping to get a rec. out of mrs. g. slimeball.

she was muttering to herself and it kind of sounded like she was praying, except when most people pray, they don't sound so much like they're bitching about a homework assignment. i felt kind of sorry for her, so--

no, that's a lie. i didn't feel sorry for her at all. i was glad she was messing up at something else. i hoped she would accidentally delete the entire yearbook and have to confess it to brian monday morning. it was such a mean thought i shocked myself. i made myself go over to her because that's what a good person would do.

"what's the matter?"

she shrieked and jumped and hit my chin with her head. she apologized and said "first aid kit, where's the first aid kit?" and i snapped that i wasn't bleeding and she said there would be aspirin, which i have to admit was a good thought.

of course she looked in the wrong place first.

i got the kit out myself because it was easier than trying to give her directions. she came over and hovered at me. i said i hadn't meant to startle her and she said she figured pain wasn't in my plans for the evening and i think that's when it started. because i had to smile at that, even though my chin still hurt. even though i didn't want to.

i asked her what was wrong again and she said macs were an alien language, probably in actual fact invented by aliens, and quark seemed to take up the whole screen and then it seemed to disappear and some kind of icon would be really useful, and then she was off into one of her weird joan spiels before i could point out that most of the windows interface was stolen from apple.

"can we skip the religious wars?" i said, and she squeaked, "what?" i don't know why that was a big deal. "mac vs. pc," i said. "were we talking about political correctness?" she said. "pc means windows," i said, and she said, yeah, she knew that.

i said, "yeah, you knew that," and she sort of half-laughed and said okay, she didn't.

i gave her a tutorial, and she didn't get anything the first time around, but it was kind of funny for once, not annoying. she wasn't trying to cover anything up and she was laughing a lot and it felt nice. it felt like we were friends.

it should have felt weird, but it didn't feel weird at all.

somehow we were talking about grace polk and i asked her if the rumors were true. she looked uncomfortable, and i realized i shouldn't be gossiping with her about her best friend, but before i could say anything she said she didn't know. i wouldn't have believed her except she's such a lousy liar. so i did believe her, but i must have looked like i didn't, because she said, "i mean, she was dating my brother for five minutes, but i don't know why they broke up. she doesn't talk about it. you know grace."

i said it was strange grace wouldn't talk about it with her best friend, maybe that meant something, and joan shrugged and said it wasn't like it mattered, and then cocked her head back and said she wouldn't have expected me to care.

and i could have sworn she was flirting, i mean she was kind of half-smiling and leaning into me, but i guess the smile was just because she felt uncomfortable. maybe it was the same smile she uses when she's lying about something and i just thought it was different because i wanted it to be.

so i shrugged and smiled myself and said, "you get curious."

"curious?" she said, and i thought that was an invitation, that and the tilt of her head, so i kissed her.

it was a nothing kiss. no tongue or anything. but it felt good. or it felt good to me. ~~her lips were very~~

thinking about this makes me feel sick.

6.

Things to get

 

\- Wooden board for canvas

 

\- Third-grade photograph

 

\- A.'s drawing of me

 

\- The ticket stub for the White Stripes concert

 

\- Two flyers for Café Ennui art show, one blue and one red

 

\- coffee beans

 

\- rice krispy treats (burn if poss.)

 

\- brownie crumbs (check w/Mrs. G. about preservatives)

 

\- fashion scarf (something J. would wear)

 

\- those paper muffin things

7.

The smile in the photograph is fake and the smile in the drawing is real, but no one else ever seems to notice the difference.

8.

Sometimes I get so mad I could--

Sometimes I get so mad.

9.

She can't pretend to be sick forever and Wednesday she has the kids after school. Joan's scheduled for Wednesday, too, but it's better that way, they won't have to talk to each other about anything but the kids. Joan probably doesn't want to talk about it either, so they can just pretend nothing had happened. They don't have to talk about it at all.

She feels so scared she wants to throw up.

But she does okay for most of the night. They're teaching the kids cross-hatching--it's easy, they can repeat Mrs. Girardi's instructions practically word for word--and the kids are really excited. It makes them feel like they're doing something adult and grown-up, like they're learning cursive when everyone else in their classes is still learning how to print. They're _too_ excited, even, yelling some and jumping around and needing to be corralled back into their seats, but this means that she and Joan have to be at opposite sides of the room working with different kids, so it's a bonus, really, under the circumstances. She even feels almost grateful when Pradesh wets his pants. One more distraction.

Joan doesn't appear to share her opinion of Pradesh's performance. This may be because he's on Joan's side of the room.

The problem comes at the end, when the kids are gone except for two or three whose parents are late. Joan's not at the other end of the room anymore. Joan's coming up to talk to her.

"Hey." Joan gives her a nervous, conciliatory smile. Iris feels so humiliated she wants to die. "Can we talk for a minute?"

"So talk."

"Outside," Joan says.

"We can't leave the kids alone."

"We'll be right outside, they can't get into any trouble in five minutes. You already put away anything they could hurt themselves with."

This is a bad idea. This is such a bad idea on so many levels Iris can't believe she's following Joan out the door to a row of orange lockers. This is the one that Iris leant against when she cried; she remembers the long jagged scratch in the paint.

"Look," Joan says, and then stops, apparently without any idea of what Iris should be looking at. "Look. I know it was a weird spur-of-the-moment thing, and let's just forget about it and go back to being friends, okay?"

Iris takes a deep breath. "We were never friends."

"Well, maybe we can start." Joan smiles her nicey smile. It's a fake. Iris was an expert in fake smiles before she gave up on them.

v"I don't want to start," Iris snaps. "I don't like you."

"Well, you seemed to Friday," Joan snaps back, and Iris can feel her entire face go hot, so hot it feels like a stove radiating onto her skin, her own private external heat source, nothing internal at all.

"You bitch," Iris says. "You stupid little _bitch._ You don't know anything, you don't know anything, how _dare_ you condescend to me--"

And she stops, horrified, and hides her face with her hands before she thinks. She tries to stop crying, she tries really hard, but the only way she can make her voice come out even is to whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm--"

Joan's light touch on her arm chokes the words in her throat. Joan pats her back clumsily and is talking, an endless stream of words, _it's okay_ and _don't worry about it_ and _it's my fault, I shouldn't have said that to you_.

Iris rocks back and forth and tries to stop crying long enough to breathe.

"My father used to say that all the time," Iris whispers, and Joan's voice stops cold.

Then Joan hugs her. It's stiff and self-conscious. Iris' entire skin twitches with the desire not to be touched and every single muscle in her body aches with the need to escape. And she takes a deep breath and rests her head on Joan's shoulder until most of the tears have stopped. She wants to stay here, because Joan is soft and warm and her hair smells good, and with her eyes closed so tight all the world is red and blank and safe, and when she opens them, time will start up again.

Then she steps back, Joan's arms dropping away.

"I'm sorry," Iris says. It's really hard not to look away.

"I don't look down on you," Joan says. She twists her hands together and shifts her shoulders restlessly and leans forward just a little. "I swear I don't. I just--we're going to be here. In this thing. With the kids. And we're going to be in the same school, and we're going to -- we're going to see each other a lot anyway. And I thought, I thought it would be easier if we were friends."

Joan looks very earnest, and she might even mean it, now that she has nothing to be jealous of. Iris wants to believe there's nothing to like in her except her face, but she's seen the way Joan claps her hands and jumps up and down when she's really happy, and she's seen the way she throws herself into a dozen projects a week, even if she's not good at any of them and has no follow-through and ...

Life is easy for Joan. She doesn't have any nightmares, and she has perfect parents, and she's been in Arcadia less than a year and already has more friends here than Iris has made in her entire life. And she clearly doesn't wonder about kissing other girls and whether it's any better than kissing boys.

Iris really doesn't know how not to hate her. But if she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life speaking in her father's voice, maybe she needs to learn.

"I don't know if that's going to work," Iris says, because maybe she needs to be honest about more than art.

"We won't know till we try, will we?" Joan tries to smile, but now she looks like she's the one on the edge of tears.

"I guess we won't," Iris says, and they just stand there, Joan blinking rapidly and Iris swiping her face with the back of her hand.

"I haven't talked about it with anyone," Joan says. "Not even with--really, not with anyone, I swear. I mean, not that you have anything to be ashamed of, or not that you even have anything, necessarily, if you were curious, I mean you don't have to figure it out right now, or if you do you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but, well, anyway, it's your right to decide when to tell people, I mean if there's anything to tell, so, you know, I haven't talked about it with anyone."

Iris swallows hard. "Thanks."

Joan offers her a tentative half-smile. "It wasn't that bad. Really."

Iris chokes on a laugh. "It was horrible."

Joan laughs, too. "No way. Horrible requires actual slobber."

It's awkward when they stop laughing, but Iris tells herself she can survive awkward. Awkward's several steps up from this morning.

"C'mon," Joan says. "Let's go back."

The three kids left are scribbling with crayons on white paper. Iris and Joan check to make sure all the other materials are put away and all the messes are cleaned up, so they can lock up and go as soon as the late parents arrive.

Iris is stacking the leftover construction paper when she feels a tug at her shirt. It's the girl with the thick glasses and the solemn old-lady air.

"Hey. What is it? Do you need help with something?"

The girl shakes her head and pushes the glasses back up her nose. "I'm glad you came today."

For some reason, Iris has to swallow back tears again. "Thanks, sweetie," she says, when she can speak. "I'm glad I came, too."

The little girl nods decisively and goes back to her drawing. As far as Iris can tell, she's drawing abstract shapes, circles joined by lines. Her lines are pretty straight for a little kid's, although the circles are better.

"She's been here before, right?" she says to Joan. "I still don't know her name."

"That's okay," Joan says. She smiles. It's a little crooked, but it's not fake. "She knows yours."


End file.
